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Publish Date: 28 Jul 2011
Double thick lamb loin chops and a cold winter's night left no choice. It had to be cabernet sauvignon, and a substantial one at that. The tasting note in the sixth edition of The Rewards of Patience wasn't eulogistic, but suggested it was powerful and chunky - and that's what I had in mind. I may have been in a good frame of mind, but I actively enjoyed it, agreeing with Rewards that it needed to be drunk soon.
For reasons I don't now recall, I had cut the capsule, but the end of the cork looked perfect. Of course, it wasn't. Penfolds had a long career of buying indifferent quality corks that are now a nightmare to remove, coring out and adhering resolutely to the sides of the neck, breaking into pieces, and so on. Over the years, I have built up a safecracker's armoury of tools, including a fine mesh stainless steel sieve if all else fails. And it did.
Authored by: James Halliday
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